As new applications such as mobile Internet and triple play have driven bandwidth demand, China's optical communications market has entered a period of high growth. As China's optical communications network has a high investment volume, a large construction scale and a clear construction plan, it will continue to grow rapidly in the future. High demand in the optical communications market has also brought demand for upstream chip products.
We have found that with the rapid growth of the global optical communications market, China's optical communication system equipment companies and optical device manufacturers have rapidly increased their global position. However, the chip products that are at the core of technology are still highly dependent on imports. With the gradual expansion of system equipment companies and optical device manufacturers, some of the more powerful companies will accelerate the breakthrough in the upstream chip field.
The field of optical communications involves a variety of chip optical communications refers to the means of communication through the optical fiber network communications data transmission, including from the device to the system manufacturing and other aspects. The optical communication industry includes three departments: optical devices, optical network system equipment, and optical fiber cables. Optical network system equipment includes optical transmission equipment and optical network access equipment for end users. System equipment manufacturers integrate various optical devices and manufacture optical network system equipment, and build optical communication networks for operators. Optical system devices also require corresponding processor chips, such as system chips for PON devices.
Optical devices are divided into active devices and passive devices. They all require a variety of different optical communications chips. Optical active devices refer to devices that involve photoelectric signal conversion. Including lasers, detectors and optical amplifiers, laser drivers and so on. Optical amplifiers and laser driver chips are also called optical transceiver chips. The chips involved in active devices are mainly lasers, detectors, and driver chips. Optical passive devices refer to devices that have certain functions in the optical communication system and do not have a photoelectric conversion function. Passive devices include: planar optical splitters, couplers, optical switches, wavelength division multiplexers, and the like. Optical devices based on PLC (planar lightwave circuit or planar optical waveguide) technology are an important part of passive optical devices. PLC chip refers to the production of many lightwave circuits on a planar substrate to provide functions such as splitting/combining and optical switching (Optical Switching). These chips can be used to fabricate optical passive components such as optical splitters and couplers.
The rapid growth of China's optical communications chip market, 3G, and the convergence of the three networks have led to the proliferation of new types of network applications. The past network bandwidth has been unable to meet the demand. The communications industry is undergoing a major transformation from the previous voice communication business to the development of data services, and the amount of data transmission over the communications network has increased significantly. Due to the development of new services such as online video, high-definition television, IPTV, and P2P download, the end-user bandwidth demand has been upgraded to 100M/s. The development of new forms of applications such as cloud computing and mobile Internet will greatly increase the proportion of online users and online time. In terms of backbone network, China Telecom estimates that the backbone network traffic will increase by 56% to 80% every year in the next 5 years. Therefore, the backbone network bandwidth in China needs to expand 10-20 times. In terms of access network, according to statistics of CNNIC, as of the end of May 2010, the total number of netizens has reached 420 million, and broadband users are 113 million, of which FTTx[7] users only have 23.2 million lines, and the proportion is very low. Taking Beijing as an example, broadband users mostly use 1M ADSL, and the download speed is basically only 60-80K/S.
The construction of communications infrastructure was highly valued by the Chinese government, and all major operators have accelerated the construction of optical communications networks. The Chinese government has tied the next-generation Internet, digital television networks and third-generation mobile communications networks as major investment directions for expanding domestic demand. It is expected that total investment will exceed 600 billion yuan. In April 2010, seven ministries and commissions released "Opinions on advancing the construction of fiber-optic broadband networks." It will invest more than 150 billion yuan in the construction of fiber-optic broadband networks within three years. By 2011, FTTx subscribers will exceed 80 million. In July 2010, the trial of triple play was launched. By 2012, the broadband access capacity in the pilot areas will exceed 100 Mb/s per second. Optical fiber broadband will be directly deployed in new urban areas. In April 2010, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Third-generation Mobile Communication Network Construction." From 2010 to 2011, the total investment in the construction of 3G networks will reach 240 billion yuan.
Under the favorable conditions of policy promotion and cost reduction, major operators are also accelerating the construction of optical fiber networks. In recent years, the cost of EPON has been reduced by more than 50%. The cost per line of the PON+ADSL construction model is less than half of the cost of using the copper cable to build ADSL. China Telecom is currently launching 100M FTTH projects in major cities such as Shanghai. It will gradually complete the transformation of broadband optical fiber in the country within three to five years; Unicom and Mobile have already started network construction. The two-way reconstruction of radio and television operators and the nationwide network construction and the FTTH construction of the State Grid will also bring about the demand for optical communication equipment. It is estimated that in the next two to three years, under the impetus of factors such as 3G, FTTx, triple play, and smart grid, the optical communication industry will maintain a rapid growth of over 15% relative to other sub-sectors of telecommunications operations, services, and other communications industries. In the field of optical fiber communications, the Chinese market has accounted for 30% of the global market share in 2009, and in the next three years, the composite growth rates for the access network and transmission network are expected to be 57% and 21%, respectively.
Development Status and Prospects of China's Optical Communication Chip Market
March 16, 2011 news, China's Samsung Economic Research Institute recently published an article entitled "China's semiconductor industry opportunity" article, in particular, the middle of the optical communication chip industry was elaborated, now special arrangements are as follows to share with everyone, also look forward to light The communications chip industry can achieve breakthroughs in China and establish a national brand.